This application requests funds to support the 2nd Annual conference on Cell Death, to be held at Queens College of the City University of New York, Flushing, NY, on July 17-19, 1998. The theme of the conference will be Cell Maintenance and Cell Death . As our understanding of the biology of cell death has advanced, we have come to recognize what should have been an obvious corollary of the concept of homeostasis as it pertains to cell number: in the equation mitosis = cell death, both sides of the equation may be regulated, and this regulation is vital for our health and well-being. This meeting will be part of the formal inauguration of the Cell Death Society which, starting from a local discussion group in 1995, now has over 400 subscribing members. The meeting will fall in the off-year, avoiding conflicts with the Keystone, Gordon, and Cold Spring Harbor meetings. In our treatment of the subject, we will focus on the concepts that cells live perpetually amid signals encouraging their maintenance, proliferation, or death, and that the effective communication of this information determines the fate of the cells. We will emphasize the impact of failure in several distinct disease situations, and we will draw parallels among the signaling mechanisms in tissues as diverse as thymocytes, central and peripheral neurons, malignant cells, and cells under the control of viral genes. We will maintain focus on processes, asking the speakers and attendees from the several disciplines to pay attention to the common elements and to note how the emphases can differ--for instance, the distinction between dependence on substratum for a normally sedentary cell and on soluble growth factors for a migratory cell. This conference will attempt to force the comparison of cell-supportive mechanisms and cell- destructive mechanisms, raising the questions of when absence of cell support is sufficient to induce apoptosis and when positive signals to self-destruct are needed. The Queens College campus is well suited to host such a conference; New York City is a big center for this type of research, and travel arrangements and timing are also convenient.